


Beautiful Boy

by BrooklynBugleBoy



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Acceptance, Beauty - Freeform, Brotherhood, Family, Gen, Insecurity, Lisp, Perfection Comes in Many Forms, body love, facial deformity, surgeries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 18:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16728636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrooklynBugleBoy/pseuds/BrooklynBugleBoy
Summary: A story of fifteen surgeries, a lisp and a beautiful smile.An anon on @queenslasharchive on tumblr asked about Roger having a lisp. Which got me thinking as to why? So I wrote a Rog with a common facial deformity. :PFor your heart @brandnewovernight on tumblr! Well... here you go.





	Beautiful Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Note: None of this actually happened. Duh. And this is just a little drabble, please enjoy. :D 
> 
>  
> 
> Hey! Have you heard about Operation Smile!? Check them out bbs :P 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGpf2UaJ810
> 
> https://www.operationsmile.org
> 
> For more information about cleft-lip and palate just ask :DDDD

**The first surgery was at exactly six months and it was to close the lip.**

Being born with a _bilateral cleft-lip-and-palate_ meant feeding difficulties, at least for him, he couldn’t correctly latch onto a bottle or a nipple, and when he tried, it would only be a piss-poor attempt at feeding. He’d just make a pathetic clicking noise, as he got a weak stream going. The hole on the top of his mouth not doing him any favors, and the lip didn't let him make a seal. 

So he was tiny, frail and with a feeding tube laced into his warped nose, when they finally fixed it.

Then the bumpy scar tissue got infected.

 

**The second surgery was to fix the lackluster results of the first.**

He remembered neither, but the motley of pictures around his parents’ house told a different story.

Pictures hung up all over, showing him at every stage of his treatment. _Not ashamed._

A tiny baby who came out looking like _The White Rabbit_ from _Alice in Wonderland_. Then who looked more like _Frankenstein’s Monster_ after those first two operations. A top lip thick with knotted pink scar tissue.

It had one crest instead of two and was noticeably fatter, looking like a constant pout.

Of course it was better than the alternative.

The scars still made other children run screaming from him on the playground. Kids called him a _monster._

But it was also the mouth his baby sister had tried to emulate with their Mum’s lipstick as a baby, drawing herself a similar scar with a shade called _Ballet Slippers._

_“Look Mummy! I’m Roggie!”_

 

**The third surgery was to repair the hole in his palate, he was barely a year old.**

Being put to sleep while doctors sewed up all the muscle and tissue to close the enormous gaping hole where the top of his mouth should’ve gone, was _traumatic_ to say the least. _(But if he ever wanted to be able to speak, it would have to be closed properly.)_

In the end, he would still have a lisp. Still have a voice that was vaguely nasal, especially if he was tired.

But the lisp was the most prominent, and he hated it.

A childhood spent compared to _Daffy Duck_ , as if looking like he did wasn’t bad enough. He was shuttled off to a speech therapist who made him feel as tiny and insignificant as a piece of seaweed in a vast ocean. It was a miracle he ever _wanted_ to speak at all. That he ever _learned_ to speak at all.

He would sing too, warble his little ditties and made-up symphonies, because they made him feel happy inside and he didn’t have to please anyone when he sang. He didn’t know that he’d end up singing in an amazing band one day, with band-mates who would become his family.

Back then he was just a little boy, with a mouth he hated and a voice he despised even more so.

 

**The fourth surgery was to make a bulge of tissue in the back of his throat, in order to aid in his speech production. He was three.**

He got really sick after that one and was in the hospital for nearly a month.

Every complication that could’ve happened, did. It was a wonder that he didn’t get sepsis. In later years his mother would tell him: “Everyone told us we were going to lose you, that we had to take a lot of pictures to remember our little boy.”

She would press a lovely little kiss to his cheek. Her eyes wet.

“Our gain in the end, more pictures of our handsome little man.”

 

**The fifth surgery was to tear his palate apart and repair it in a better alignment, he was four.**

She kept all his little hospital bands, the ones that would fit around his tiny wrists in the ward, and would proudly show them off to anyone who came by the house. A chronology of his life.

The boys had been shocked at all the pictures and mementos. They saw the scars everyday, they knew he must’ve looked frightful as a baby, but just _how_ frightful seemed to be a shock. Freddie had hesitantly reached out to rub a thumb over Baby Roger's little rabbit mouth in a glossy picture.

Grown Roger had flushed. “Yeah, I know. _Scary_ , right? It looks like a chasm from Hell.” A nervous laugh.

Brian had been aghast. “No! You had an adorable little smile.” A dirty liar if he ever knew one. But the dorky curly-top was acting like it was genuine.

“I looked like a rabbit.” Rog sighed, flopping back against Deaky. Who added his ever-helpful: “Rabbits are cute.”

“Have you see the bands yet?”

Clare piped up helpfully from her corner, coming over with a picture frame tucked under one arm.

“Bands?” Freddie’s brows were furrowed and Roger groaned. “Oh no, Clarie! It’s _depressing.”_

The bands were pinned there like a lepidopterist might pin butterflies. Covered in dates and varying in size with how old he was with each. “These are the bands from all his surgeries, Mum kept them.” Passing the frame over to Deaky who looked at him with a new emotion in his warm eyes.

“Surgeries? _Plural?”_

“I thought it was just one, darling? To close the hole?”

Freddie’s impressive teeth were biting at his bottom lip and Roger flushed scarlet, he hadn’t wanted them to know, hadn’t wanted their pity. “Nah, there were a couple more. I needed to look my best, you know? It’s a lot of work to look this good and talk so bloody well.” A wink to assuage the heavy feeling in his chest.

Deaky shook his head, looking at the display.

“There’s so _many_ …”

Brian’s arm wrapped securely around the drummer’s waist, a gesture he wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with. While Freddie reached out and took Roger’s chin into one of his vast daintily fingered hands. Fingernails still painted black from their last concert. “Well, love.” Eyes raking over his mouth in some modicum of an inspection. “I can certainly see the appeal.”

 

**The sixth was to put tubes in his ears to drain the fluid that was predisposed to collect there.**

It was the first one he was old enough to remember, he was five.

He remembered kicking and screaming desperately against the hands that held him down, the hands that pressed an mask of anesthesia to his face. Tears slid down his cheeks and made his face sticky when he awoke.

He remembered _screaming._

 

**The seventh was a bone graft to provide stability for his adult teeth inside his mouth.**

A place for them to grow.

They ripped out a chunk of his hip and stapled it into his mouth.

It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.

 

**The braces weren’t exactly an operation per say, but the palatal expander burned like fire and the accompanying headgear was atrocious.**

**Cosmetic surgeries started when he was nine. Surgery eight was an operation to improve the shape and balance of his nose and aid in his breathing.**

“No fair!” Clare had pouted. “How come Roggie gets a nose job and I can’t?”

 

**The ninth surgery was on his jaw and the tenth, only a few days after, was to fix what they fucked up.**

He remembered looking at himself in the mirror after surgery, and bursting into loud juicy tears at all the swelling and mess on his face. Worried that he’d spend forever looking like a troll.

It hadn’t stayed of course, but the scars would always be a sore point.

Right up there with the lisp and the memories.

 

**The eleventh was to implant a few fake teeth where adult ones would never grow, in order to give him a better smile.**

When he first met Brian and Tim, he wore a scarf wrapped around his mouth. It was wintertime in dreary London sure, but that wasn’t the only reason he wore it.

Taking it off was an _experience._

Brian had gaped, Tim had only blinked, dumbfounded. They’d stared at him for a good minute or so, before one of them could finally muster up _something_ to say.

“You… _Oh.”_

Wow, so bloody articulate.

Sometimes he’d wished, still did, that someone would just come out and _say it,_ so they could move on. So he did it himself. “Yes, I know how I look. Not rock-and-roll enough for you?” A quirked eyebrow and his unique smile on full display, to compliment his declaration of war.

“What _happened?”_ Ah, Timmy. Ever so eloquent with his words, even back then. Acting as if Roger had been tragically mauled by a bear or something. Christ, it didn’t really look that bad… _right?_

“A _birth defect._ I’ll have you know it’s taken a lot of work to be this good looking.” A blown kiss. “So… you lot don’t want _Frankenstein’s Monster_ as your drummer?” Wouldn’t be the first time his face had put somebody off. If the scar and freaky smile didn’t do it, the baby-talk lisp sure would.

“Well that depends.” Bri had said calmly, adjusting the position of his beloved Red Special on his shoulder. “Can you play _the Monster Mash?”_

Roger had snorted with peels of undisguisable laughter.

 

**The next three surgeries were to minimize the scarring, but they only made things worse.**

It was just some bloke during a concert at first, it happened a few times actually.

Some arsehole calling him ugly, repulsive, comparing him to a cat or a reptile.

He’d gone to a school with other boys, had been out in public most of his life. He’d heard worse. It was no different than people calling Freddie a _Paki,_ even though Rog nearly jumped off the stage, brandishing his drumsticks as a weapon when that happened. They quickly learned to button-up.

The jeers didn’t bother him. They were soothing background noise.

He already knew every synonym for ugly, thank you. _And if you really think low enough of your wife’s bits to compare my face to them, then I pity the poor girl._

Repulsive, reptilian, unlovely, hideous, awful, horrible, frightful, ghastly, vile, revolting, repugnant, grotesque, misshapen, deformed, disgusting, monstrous… need he go on?

It honestly didn’t phase him anymore. He had his band, he had his family and he had a mouth that worked. Shoddy as it may have started out. Scarred as it may have been. It was his. For better or for worse.

“Can you believe the nerve of that tosser?!” Freddie practically shrieked on their way into the dressing room. Deaky was nodding in agreement. “Yea, I thought for sure Bri was gonna pistol-whip him with the Red. Roggie, I thought you were gonna choke him for sure… what happened?”

“Huh?” Roger looked up from where he was taping up his fingers, having agitated a few callouses with the near constant playing over the past few days. “Why would I do that?”

“You nearly tore the balls off the last bloke who called Fred a shitty name, we all figured it would be worse.” Bri finished softly, putting away his guitar with all the care a mother might afford her newborn.

“Yea, but that’s different. Freddie isn’t a Paki, he’s _Parsi._ If someone had screamed _Parsi_ up on the stage, it wouldn’t have made much of a dent in anything. Calling an ugly sod _ugly_ isn’t exactly a high priority on my list for physical correction. I’m more concerned with his lack of manners, to be honest.”

The room went so quiet, that Freddie’s maraca rolled off the table and the sound was near deafening when it hit the ground.

“Rog… what… _what_ did you just say?”

Bri sounded incredulous.

“Oh come off it Bri, you aren’t that old. Your hearing can’t be going already, _Grandpa.”_ He teased, wiping off his eyeliner with a wet-nap.

He jumped when Deaky’s hand found its way onto his shoulder, gently turning him away from the mirror. “You’re not ugly, Roger.” His eyes were shining. “ _You aren’t ugly._ ” Spitting the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. Like repeating it would change anything. He tightened his hold like he was going to shake it all out of Roger, all those terrible thoughts the world had implanted inside his head.

“Deaky…”

“He’s right, Roggie.” Freddie was quiet for once, looking over at him with a tube of lipgloss clasped in one hand. “Have you ever tried _this_ before?”

Waving the gloss around like it was some sort of magic wand.

The blonde furrowed his eyebrows at the change in tactic and he shook his head. Freddie wasted no time closing the gap between them, tugging out the glossy brush and positioning himself just-so.

“Freddie, I don’t think…”

“Hush, darling. The Master’s at work.”

The gloss felt foreign, light and sticky on his less-than-ideal mouth. His dark-eyed lovely best-friend painted his lips like he was repairing a painting in the Louvre. His eyes burned with tears for some godforsaken reason and he wanted nothing more than to turn away, but Freddie held fast.

“There!” Freddie beamed over at him, those teeth on full display. “You know, dear, people pay good money to get a pout like yours.”  
  
He turned Roger to face the mirror and for an instant, he actually liked what he saw.

Freddie rested his head on their drummer’s shoulder, snuggling close, staring into the mirror, two unique smiles side-by-side.

“ _Beautiful._ ”

 

**The fifteenth was to realign his bite.**

Meeting Freddie was like a battle of wills.

His inner asshole stared at those teeth. Freddie’s inner asshole stared at Roger’s mouth.

“Wow, mate. Ever had those teeth registered as a deadly weapon?” _Smooth, Rog._

Freddie only grinned.

“No, dear, I’m afraid not. Shouldn’t you be rushing off though? _Late, late for a very important date?”_

Oh, you little _shit._

He practically beamed, they were going to have such fun together.

 

**The sixteenth surgery was meant to reduce scarring again, but it never came to fruition. He didn’t go. He refused it.**

She wasn’t a fan, not an ordinary one at least.

Came backstage with a riot of other fans, a little blonde boy cuddled in her arms. With all the gall of a young unwed mother, she marched up to the room they were all crammed into and knocked brusquely on the door.

Then stepped inside to everyone’s surprise.

“Hello, I’m looking for Roger Taylor?”

They took one look at the blonde boy in her arms and thought they’d put two-and-two together. Miami paled, Freddie gasped like the drama queen he was. Brian crossed himself and Deaky started looking furtively for an exit, or like he was planning Roger’s funeral, whichever happened to come first.

“Oh come off it, wankers. He isn’t _mine!”_

Though he did turn back to her for clarification, and she nodded to his immense relief.

“No, he’s not. He’s just your biggest fan.” She set the tiny tot down on his feet, maybe just small for his age. He hid his face in her trouser leg.

“Come on, lovie. You wanted to meet Mr. Taylor, remember?” She cooed. “With the _pretty smile?”_

Well.

That was an _odd_ descriptor.

He didn’t realize why, until the boy rushed over to hug his legs and nearly sent him toppling over like the Hindenburg. The child beamed up at him with a face full of joy and a familiar scar on his top lip. _Oh._

“Hello, Mr. Taylor.”

He hadn’t loved that accursed lisp until it had come from the mouth of a child who seemed to have practiced that greeting for ages. He knelt down so they were close to being eye-to-eye.

“Hello, what’s your name?”

“Shay.” The boy was looking at him like he’d created the universe himself.

“Hello, Shay. Would you like to meet my friends?”

The tiny boy nodded, so Roger was quick to sweep him away into the care of his boys. The little thing was scared at first, hiding his mouth with his sleeve before Rog nudged him with a sympathetic smile. “It’s okay, love. They like my smile, so I’m sure they’ll love yours.”

And love it they did.

He spent a handful of hours with a little shadow after the necessary adoration of his bandmates for the tiny boy, teaching him a few things about drumming, decking him out in Queen gear and just talking to the little lad.

He was preparing for another surgery in the coming weeks, his Mum had brought him to the show for a little surprise before the big day. Roger made it a note to send flowers.

When it was finally time to go, the little boy did one last thing, he wrapped Roger in a big hug.

“The kids at school treat me _different,_ or at least, they did, until they saw _you.”_

The boy pressed something into his hand, as he ducked off with his mother in the crowd. Roger was left gaping.

“Well that was _adorable._ ” Freddie said, going off about something Shay had said or done, while Rog slowly uncurled his fist. A tiny hospital band was sitting in the center, a few weeks old. On the inside of the band, where the medical information wasn’t, a child’s hand had written ** _THANK YOU_**. In shaky big block letters.

Roger cried.

 

**He wasn’t born perfect. He was born with a bilateral cleft-lip-and-palate.**

**He had fifteen surgeries as a child, countless orthodontic measures taken on his mouth and pain like no other. His face was scarred and he would never look ordinary.**

**But a little boy found someone to look up to in him. He had friends who were his family, they called him Alice to tease him and gave him Hell for the lisp he hated. Ergo, he loved them more than anything.**

**Roger Taylor wasn’t born perfect. But that was the thing.**

**He didn’t _have_ to be.**

 

 


End file.
